


Despair Has Its Own Calms

by spilled_inkwell



Category: Dracula & Related Fandoms, Dracula (TV 2020), Dracula - Bram Stoker
Genre: Blood, Drabble, Gen, M/M, Other, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:06:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 2,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26858689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spilled_inkwell/pseuds/spilled_inkwell
Summary: Collection of Dracula (book and 2020 series) drabbles.
Relationships: Dracula & Jonathan Harker, Dracula/Jonathan Harker, John Seward & Abraham Van Helsing, John Seward/Abraham Van Helsing
Kudos: 27





	1. Hope

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first work that I've posted online so I don't really know what I'm doing so please be kind and if I need to tag anything that I've missed please tell me so that I can fix it.
> 
> Thank you!

Morning came again and Jonathan sluggishly awoke to meet it. He was not getting any better no matter how much he slept or ate so he decided to be productive with his time. He swayed uncertainly as he stood grasping the bedpost for a moment as his vision swam.

He dressed and carefully made his way down the stone stairs. As he was forewarned when first he had arrived at the castle, the Count was never available during the day and so Jonathan was confident enough that his wanderings would not be noted. Most doors that he came across were locked. Early on in his acquaintance with the Count, Jonathan would have put it down to privacy or eccentricity, yet now, the cold walls that had once seemed so impressive and large, started to weigh in on him.

Every window was heavily draped so it was with great surprise that Jonathan noticed a shaft of sunlight splitting through the air of the dim hallway. What he had before taken to be a fine tapestry turned out to also double as a covering for yet another window. With a shaking hand he drew back the fabric and was nearly blinded by the unfiltered intensity of the sun’s light. Boldly he tried the latch. It opened with little force needed. 

For a long moment Jonathan stood by the window and simply breathed in the icy air of the mountains. It was cold and fresh and invigorating, a stark contrast to the stale air he had been trapped inside with for well over a week now. When he could at last fully open his eyes and take in the world Jonathan gasped and smiled. There was snow everywhere, covering the rocky cliffside that went down for miles to the river below. He could hear the trees creaking against the wind, the low moan of distant weather making its way over the Carpathians.

The world was still there. It was alive and wonderful and Jonathan stared out until his eyes watered. A cloud passed over the sun and he shivered.


	2. Gratitude

_Written on a piece of notepaper by Quincey Morris_

When Arthur broke down in Miss Mina’s arms I excused myself as politely as I was able and lit a cigarette by the window. Thinking back on that moment now I feel as though I wasn’t leaving to spare Art the embarrassment of showing any form of weakness in front of me, but rather to avoid showing any sign of my own weakness. Seeing him like that, so broken, damn near breaks me also.

Sweet Lucy, if I would have known that it would be like this I would have gladly taken that stake from his hands and delivered you myself. I would gladly bear his suffering in this. Indeed I feel that I already do.

When Miss Mina approached me after comforting Arthur in his time of need I thanked her for her kindness. In that respect her and Lucy were very much alike. Jonathan is a lucky man indeed to have her. It is unfair of us to ask her to be a shoulder for our grief when she is as much in pain as all of us, yet she is a woman and has a woman’s heart for such matters and her very presence in this house brings comfort to me.

Arthur is resting now. Good old Jack has made up a room for us as we do not wish to be separate from one another so soon. I have taken the sofa but have not found sleep yet. I am overwhelmed. Current events and the tide of emotions that have come with them, that are roiling within me, have made sleep elusive. 

All at once I feel terribly alone. Though circumstances have brought us all together I have this lingering doubt that I do not belong here at all. For one, I am a foreigner. Of course Doctor Van Helsing is from the continent but he has a strong friendship with Jack, and they have their science together also. Quite selfishly I feel as if I have no connection to anyone in this house other than the fact that we all loved the same woman. The same woman who is now dead and at peace.

Yet I am glad for my friend. I am glad for the time he had with her. She chose well in choosing him, not to diminish the qualities of old Jack of course. I am thankful that she loved him and that he loved her. I am thankful that he knows this kind of love for now that he knows of it he may be sure to find it again. Yet if he does not then I shall be all the more grateful for her love of him. 

It sounds as if my friend is having a fretful rest. I shall try to comfort him as best as I am able. That’s what dear sweet Lucy would do if she were here after all.


	3. Determination

The man was slumped over himself in an ungainly heap on the floor. The Count sauntered up to him nonchalantly and fisted a hand into the greying hair, bearing the man’s neck and throat.

“Come now Johnny,” he called softly, beckoning me towards him with an outstretched hand.

I closed my eyes and swallowed harshly. I could hear the heartbeat in my skull, pounding in my head, nearly deafening me. My teeth felt heavy and sharp in my mouth and I shuddered. I wanted it. By God I needed it with all my being.

“Johnny.” The voice was closer, quieter, and a hand wrapped itself in mine. It pulled me and I went with it, trembling uncontrollably as I was led to kneel on the floor.

The sound of the blood was like a roaring river in my head. I could almost smell it. The man’s breathing was laboured and his staccato heartbeat thrummed through the air. I chanced to open my eyes. To my surprise the Count was knelt beside me watching in rapt fascination. Pressing against my side he reached around me, in a facsimile of an embrace, and with a long sharp nail cut a shallow wound in the man’s throat.

I watched as blood lazily seeped from the wound, dripped slowly down the column of the man’s neck and pooled in his clavicle. All the while I shook, staring unseeing at the red as I fervently denied my body’s impulse to grab, to bite, to taste, to drink, to take, to satisfy my hunger, my need, this ache inside me.

The Count watched me, an unreadable emotion dancing in the devil’s eyes. He was smiling as if I amused him but he didn’t laugh. Only waited. The blood was still flowing. When I tried to look away he would make me turn back but the Count never forced me to act. I heard a keening groan that I thought was coming from the frail man but then bit my lip when I recognised my own voice echoing back to me.

“Johnny,” cooed the Count. He brought his hand to my face and pulled my lip free with his thumb. “It’s alright Johnny.”

I shook my head as I watched his other hand drift over to the body on the floor. Long fingers dragged themselves through the rivulet of blood. I tried to close my eyes but the hand resting on my cheek moved itself to the back of my neck and squeezed.

The stained fingers were brought to my lips and I reflexively opened my mouth. “Taste,” urged the Count, twitching his fingers so they lightly brushed my lower lip. It was too much. The noise, the smell, and now the taste, all too much and not enough. I made a pitiful noise in the back of my throat before engulfing his fingers, sucking on them lewdly to get every last drop, every last trace of the hot, thick, life.

I gasped when he at last pulled away. There was something like fire in his eyes, something possessive and prideful. The hand on my neck urged me forward towards the body and this time I went all too willingly.

I was obscene in my hunger. Licking, sucking, biting, moaning when at last I felt a hot gush of thick blood burst across my tongue and down my throat. I drank, gulping down everything, wanting more, so much more. I could feel the Count’s hand trailing patterns across my back as I fed and I arched into the touch.

“Good boy Johnny.” The smooth voice when it came was breathed into my ear. The Count pressed bodily against me, watching me, grounding me, guiding me. I shuddered.


	4. Rain

It was raining when they saw one another again.

Over one hundred years had passed. The world had changed along with the people but the face that stared into his own from across the busy street was just as it was back then, as if he hadn't aged a day. And of course he hasn’t. Neither of them had.

Jonathan Harker had felt like a stone in the centre of a rushing river. A constant, never moving but adapting to the changes that the river of life decided to run. 

Yet here he was. Another fixed point, another constant, another monster, staring him down as if unwilling to accept Jonathan’s existence.

He couldn’t move away from the fiery gaze. Clenching the hand that was holding his umbrella he met the Count’s stare with one of his own. Jonathan’s blue eyes burned with defiance, daring the Count to make the first move. He had withstood one hundred years, he had fought wars, he had witnessed plagues and illness, and he had suffered through the turbulence that was humanity. He was not about to be cowed by this creature in the guise of a man.

The Count straightened, uncaring of the rain. He was already sodden, spat out from the sea not half a day ago and the rain had been a constant and steady downpour since then. He had walked to the nearest city and kept walking, uncaring as to his destination, when some unexplainable force told him to look across the street.

Bright blue eyes that he hadn’t seen in over a century stared back at him and he stopped. Time seemed to stop. His best bride, his wonderful Johnny, his, all his, was here and he was so beautiful. So strong, so elegant. Another look and he could tell that Jonathan’s shock had been replaced by a firmer demeanour and a thrill ran through the Count. He was powerful, dangerous, deadly, perfect.

In a fluid motion the Count strode across the street, like a shark against the current, and stood in front of the other man, letting him have the canopy of his umbrella as a perimeter. Jonathan stood ramrod straight and said nothing. For a long moment the two constants looked at one another, both of them achingly familiar yet, at the same time, so different.

“Hello Johnny,” murmured the Count, his voice barely audible over the rain. A muscle in Jonathan’s cheek twitched at the old nickname. The Count just smiled. “Oh, how I’ve missed you.”


	5. Coffee

The vapor from the drink warmed my face as I took another sip. I heard the professor hum appreciatively around his own draught of coffee and tried not to look as pleased as I felt. I knew how he took his coffee from when I was his student and was happy to discover that his habit hadn’t changed in the intervening years. 

I knew this small respite of ours wouldn’t last long so I endeavoured to savour it for as long as I could. What with mister and misses Harker encouraged to stay with us alongside mister Morris and Lord Godalming I was sure our morning would be interrupted sooner rather than later.

It’s selfish of me, I know, to want to occupy more of Van Helsing’s time and yet when he will turn a look towards me, or nod his head, or cast me a wink, I feel as though we are connected somehow. If it be through our shared knowledge or our relationship as mentor and mentee I know not and still I crave it. His approval meant, and still does to this day mean, a great deal to me. It would hurt me greatly if I were to be seen as a disappointment to him.

“What is weighing on your mind, friend John?” I blinked up at the professor who was regarding me with his kind eyes from over the top of a piece of paper, most likely one of our many journal records that Miss Harker had transcribed for our use. I composed my features into something less pensive and assured him that the matter was a trivial one.

“It is for the best that we as friends remain as honest and open with one another as we possibly can be,” said Van Helsing, his smile turning down a little at the corners. I only nodded and turned my attention back to the cooling beverage I cradled in my hands.


	6. Light

The storm lashed out in the night, the wind whipping cruelly at the sea and dashing it angrily against the rocks. The lighthouse at times was partially engulfed by particularly furious waves yet the beacon still stood, as it was made to do.

Inside the tower of stone were three men, two of which were huddled by the stove in the kitchen. One of these men only had a blanket and his undergarments to protect his dignity. His sodden garments dripped from the chairs they hung from, gently steaming from the heat. He was shaking violently, his rescuers attributing that to the frigid waters of the North sea and refilling his cup generously with warm beer.

The third man was currently at the top of the lighthouse manning the light. That day the two workers had cleaned the windows and polished the glass and shined the mirrors as they did every morning, and he had taken extra care when handling the powerful bulbs. They had spares of course, but they were precious and so had to be treated as such.

It was by chance that they discovered the small rowboat thrashing about in the choppy waters that evening. The thin man that they had dragged from the boat looked close to death but they had a duty and so brought him inside and offered him food when he eventually awoke from his stupor.

Now, after declining the offer of food but gladly cradling the warm beverage, the man stared into the dancing flames, unaware of his shivering. When asked his name he just shook his head and wrapped the blanket closer around his shoulders.

A crashing sound came from up the winding stairs and both men started from their seats, one in concern and the other in abject horror. The lighthouse keeper assured the man that it was probably his partner dropping a lightbulb or knocking a mirror over yet he didn’t sound so sure of himself.

He left the shaking man in the room alone as he ascended the tower to investigate the disturbance. The man gasped when he saw his friend sprawled on the floor, blood pooling beneath his still body. The wind whipped through the sizable hole that had been smashed into the window oddly enough, the man noted, from the outside. He didn’t have long to guess as to what had transpired before a large black figure grabbed him and snapped his neck like dry kindling.

Jonathan was frantically trying to redress himself when Count Dracula silently drifted down the staircase, wiping a smattering of blood off of his chin. The man’s knees gave out from beneath him and he collapsed onto the hard stone floor, shuffling backwards as the Count continued his advance.

He seemed to leech what little light there was out of the room as he kneeled in front of Jonathan. A strong hand took a hold of a quivering chin and he smiled a sharp and unkind smile.

“Not one of your brighter ideas Johnny,” he sneered. 

A moment later Jonathan’s world was engulfed in darkness as his head was smashed against the unforgiving floor and he fell limply into unconsciousness.


End file.
